


catharsis

by bookhobbit



Series: The Magic Circle [3]
Category: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell - Susanna Clarke
Genre: Crying, Hugging, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-06
Updated: 2015-11-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 06:25:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5153606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookhobbit/pseuds/bookhobbit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which the Nameless King takes a moment to let go.</p>
            </blockquote>





	catharsis

**Author's Note:**

> I have fallen into yet another tiny ship hell. Moll I'm blaming you even though this is entirely my fault.

January 1818

 

The Nameless King did not quite know how it began.

He had been sitting with Vinculus on another visit - not uncommon these days. There was something peculiarly easy about Vinculus’s company. The King thought perhaps it was because Vinculus’s demands seemed so low. He did not become anxious when their conversation ebbed, nor try to fill the gaps with small inconsequential comments. The King was quite used to fairy court life by this time, and therefore found this relief from polite manners very relaxing.

But they were not in a gap at present. The King was telling Vinculus about his kingdom.

“I am constantly called upon to solve disputes,” he was saying. “That is my chief occupation. Fairies are very quarrelsome.”

“I imagine so. I cannot claim great experience, but - ” Vinculus raised an eyebrow and tapped his throat. “The one you were with certainly was not a very amiable fellow.”

The King’s face twisted a little at the memory of the Gentleman with the Thistle-down Hair. “No,” he said. “Well, they are not all so bad. Most of them are very good folks - only very different from us.” He gazed down at the grass. “I sometimes feel as though I shall never be at home.”

Vinculus tapped his pipe out thoughtfully. “Yes? Not quite a fairy, not quite a human?”

“I am a human,” said the King, “But sometimes it seems as though that will never be acknowledged. I have felt all my life that I do not belong here, and yet somehow I do not belong there either.”

Vinculus nodded. “A king, and yet still an outsider.”

“Even more so, perhaps. People do not think of kings as people in need of friendship. They are polite and respectful. So now I am isolated in two worlds. I do not think they mean it, but I do not know how to ask them not to be so distant. I think in a hundred years or so they will grow used to me, and perhaps then I will be less lonely, but right now it is difficult. And I cannot talk to them about my experiences. All that long horror - they do not understand. I know they try, but they do not. And so I have ten years of hell I cannot share with anyone. It makes the burden very heavy.”

The King realized there were tears in his eyes. He tried to wrestle them down; some of it must have shewn on his face, because Vinculus said, “If not here, where?”

“What?” said the King, scrubbing at his eyes with a palm.

“I said if not here, where? If you cannot cry your tears here, where are you going to do it? Alone?” Vinculus clicked his tongue, shook his head. “Not much good there. No-one to pet you and tell you how all right things are going to be.”

“Are they?”

Vinculus shrugged. “I would not know. But that is the job of the other party, isn’t it?  Comforting lies?”

“I do not wish to be lied to,” said the King. His tears were falling fast now, despite his best efforts. “I wish for the truth.”

Vinculus sighed. “All right then,” he said, “Here’s a truth. I do not know what is going to happen. Neither do you. The future is written in a language neither of us can read. But it will do you no good to stay so buttoned-up all of your life, and it’s a very long life you are going to have now you’re a fairy king, so you might as well cry. Mayhap I don’t know everything you are crying for, but at least I have an inkling, which is more than you can say for most. So get on with it.” He  reached out with a gentle hand to touch the King’s shoulder.

It was slow, and the King could see it coming, and he could have moved away if he wanted, but he found he did not. The hand on his arm was warm and very human. He shook apart and buries his face in his hands.

“There now,” said Vinculus’s cracked quick voice above him. “Sssh. In the short term it will be all right, anyway. You will feel better, at least for a little while.”

The King fitted “I’m not sure that helps” between silent sobs.

“I know,” said Vinculus. His hand moved up to the King’s neck, cautiously, and the fingers curled around it and traced little soothing arcs into the skin. After a moment, he tugged a little.

The King, with the helpless despairing lack of restraint that really only comes when you are crying too hard to think properly, lay his head against Vinculus’s shoulder.

Vinculus petted his head in short slow strokes, and did not say anything else.

The King’s tears subsided eventually. He carefully shook himself loose from Vinculus and turned away. “Thank you,” he said.

Vinculus nodded. He fiddled with his waistcoat and shirt, which had become somewhat disarranged during the King’s lapse of control. Seeking for some other topic, the King said, “You do not wear a neckcloth.”

Vinculus grimaced. “I am no longer very fond of the sensation of any thing around my neck.”

“Ah.” Vinculus’s collar was half-undone, and the King could see in his mind’s eye the noose around it. He reached out without meaning to, and then drew back.

“It’s all right,” said Vinculus. “You may if you want. But don’t put them around my neck.”

“No. I would not.” The King reached up to touch the vulnerable skin exposed by the collar, drawing invisible lines around the place where he fancied bruises must have been.

He had the distinct sensation of a deliberate exchange then; of Vinculus, having seen his weakness, allowing one of his own to be seen in return. He did not know if he was imagining it. Perhaps he was.

“You did not seem to have been afraid of it then,” he said.

“I was not. I knew it would happen.” Vinculus shrugged.

“Everything is written,” said the Nameless King, with a quirk of his mouth.

“Yes. But now - ”

“Now you do not know what will happen.”

“And I cannot remember,” said Vinculus with another shrug, “What it was like. Being dead. I dream of it, but it’s always blank.”

“Does that scare you?”

“I suppose nothingness is not so bad. Hell would be worse, but perhaps that is where I was, and my memory has been taken.”

“Perhaps,” said the King. “But I do not think so.” His fingers moved lower, to the collarbone. He could almost feel, as much as hear, Vinculus’s breath grow just the faintest hint sharper.

He began to unbutton the rather sloppily-done front of Vinculus’s shirt.

Vinculus laughed and let him. “In a literary mood?”

“I wanted to see it again.”

“You have not seen it since it was changed.”

“It was changed?”

“Yes, when I returned from the dead.”

“Is it another prophecy?”

“I do not know. No-one can read it. Him in the house is trying.”

“Mr Segundus?”

“No, John Childermass,” said Vinculus, with a roll of his eyes. “Very irritating he is, too. Won’t allow a man a moment’s rest.”

“I do note that you seem to be having one now.”

“Only because he’s in to see his - ” Vinculus waggled his eyebrows in place of a noun. The King snorted, not quite expecting it.

The button-front of Vinculus’s shirt was undone to the end of the placket now; the King hesitated. He glanced up at Vinculus, who shrugged.

“All right by me,” he said. “Believe me, I am used to people having a peek at my body. I have to get undressed for a society of magicians once a month. After them, you hold no terrors.”

“I am sorry,” said the King. “That sounds most - unpleasant.”

“Not really. It is far more uncomfortable for them than it is for me.” This thought seemed to make Vinculus rather merry. “And furthermore they pay for my drink.”

The King raised his eyebrow, but pushed Vinculus’s shirt aside so that it was as far open as it would go.

For a moment they sat like that, the Nameless King looking at Vinculus’s letters, Vinculus watching the King with his peculiar hawkish gaze.

The King slowly moved a hand to Vinculus’s chest. He touched a letter that looked like two circles, one within the other, tracing the little marks with the lightest of touches. Vinculus shivered a little, perhaps at the ticklishness of it.

“See?” he said. But he was not grinning. The surprizing gentleness had returned, the regard he seemed to shew to no-one else.

“I can certainly see that something is written,” said the King. “And that it is in a language I cannot read. But how do you know it is the future? You do not know what it says.”

“Perhaps it’s not,” said Vinculus. “Perhaps it is his best attempt at being literary and we shall find out that it is all dreadful poetry. A terrible fate for a man, to be covered in dreadful poetry. But you can be sure that he knows. We’re all just part of a spell he is spinning.”

“So there is no point to anything, then?”

“None at all,” said Vinculus with a grin, “So you may as well enjoy the ride.”

“I do not see the enjoyment in anything, without purpose.”

“Hmm. Well. We shall have to see if we can change that,” said Vinculus.

“And how do you manage to do that?”

“I have not formed my plans yet. You will know when I do,” Vinculus said airily.

“It sounds very ominous.”

“Nothing so alarming, I assure you. There will probably be drinking.”

“Well,” said the King, considering, “I know how to do that, at least.”

Vinculus snorted.

The King withdrew his hands, and placed them in his lap. “Thank you. I appreciate - everything.”

“Should you ever desire to see more,” said Vinculus, buttoning his shirt, “You need only ask. As I said, you hold no terrors after a society full of magicians.” And he winked.

The King gave a startled laugh, one more genuine than he had managed for a long time.

“Perhaps,” he said. “And maybe you can find the answer on yourself somewhere.”

“I will keep you updated on my Reader’s progress,” said Vinculus. “King - if you ever need to unburden yourself, I have little to do aside from modeling my words, and a new tale is always welcome, even if it is a grim one. I make very good sympathetic tutting noises.”

The King looked at him. There was no humor in his eyes. “Perhaps,” he said again. Then he rose, and made Vinculus a small bow. “I must go attend to my kingdom.”

“Naturally. Thank you for favoring me with a visit, your graciousness.” The King could hear a mocking edge in the words, but he did not think it was him Vinculus was mocking. It was more the whole world - a world that had seen them enchanted and disenchanted and murdered and resurrected. A world that had brought them together - a vagabond and a king.


End file.
